Delivering Best Man Toasts - You Need To Get This Right

The wedding reception is the place where the best man is required to deliver his well-prepared best man toasts and speech. Too often, guys who are given this role often find themselves anxious, not really knowing how to come up with a perfect wedding toast speech. The task may give some men sleepless nights, and some may even end up having one to many drinks at the wedding reception, hoping to get over their nerves before standing up in front of the guests!

One thing that you need to remember, if you are the one chosen to deliver the best man toast is that it is not really your moment, so it is not about you, but about the newly wed couple. Still, you will deliver the best man toast more effectively if you look forward to it and savor the moment, because it is something special to the bride and the groom.

There must be a good reason why you are chosen as the best man at the wedding. Perhaps you are the groom's brother, cousin or best friend. Maybe you had known the couple for a long time, and had witnessed the joys and struggles of their relationship. Build on this and look back on moments when you had seen the couple's love shine through, even at the most trying times in their relationship.

When writing best man toasts, you need to consider the kind of audience that you will most likely have. If the wedding will be attended mostly by conservative guests, then you may want to think twice about saying anything about the groom's wild ways before the wedding. You may want to include a funny incident that involves both the bride and the groom, but make sure it is not an embarrassing event that either the bride or the groom would rather forget.

Best man toasts are also the best time to offer your best wishes for the couple. If you are married yourself, it may be easier to share some wise advice on how to achieve a happy marriage. If you are a bachelor, you may not feel qualified to give some advice on marriage, but perhaps you can share some thoughts on relationships that the couple will remember later on.

Ideally, good best man toasts and speeches should only last for less than 10 minutes. Anything longer than that can bore the guests and possibly spoil the magic of the moment. A good tip will be to write down your speech and time yourself while practicing it. On the day itself, bring along your notes to make sure you don’t forget what you want to say.

You can even add some visual aids, like a short slideshow of pictures of the couple, which you can refer to while delivering your speech. If you plan to include a funny anecdote, make sure it is age appropriate, not too vulgar nor offensive.

At the end of your speech, give the couple a sincere glance and propose the toast with a blessing for the newlywed's happy life together.